In co-creation with Barbara Mavro Thalassitis for her Roberta Dance Company: PAVANE / OBJEKT II

"...Between dance and visual installation, Barbara Mavro Thalassitis and Erwin Wauters create a universe where the bodies seem animated objects. Besides an incredible physical performance, “Pavane” is an unclassable creation, exploring the man-woman ratios in a mixture of humour, violence (sometimes going as far as sadomasochistic), diffused tenderness and constant strangeness. A great success to be absolutely discovered..." Jean-Marie Wynants, Le Soir

"...On a perfectly suitable music, Erwin Wauters and Barbara Mavro Thalassitis interpret a choreography graduated, demanding, eloquent and funny, which progresses in a suspended slowness, swarming with reflexions and of plastic references..." Eric Demey, Impressions d'Avignon

" ….A wickedly cruel fairytale about a 'falsely' tuned piano player, a rather amorphous female character and a pink teddy bear, who has quite peculiar estheticalprinciples… The atmosphere is plastic and brutal. Blind violence, lashes of sensuality and comical perfume are the ingredients of this singular score with the early composition of Maurice Ravel’s 'Pavane pour une infante défunte', as starting point…” Olivier Hespel

In Pavane, ‘the other’ is taken for and treated like an object while the dancers body is rendered to its objective, material state. The piece will be introduced by Ravel’s 'Pavane pour une infante défunte', interpreted live by Stephan Ginsburg.

This prelude will introduce the subject of this piece: the loss of innocence and the relationship between a man (disguised as a pink teddy bear) and the lifeless body of a woman who’s being manipulated like an object. Alternately an object of desire or scrap, she gradually gains life until she, on her turn, transforms the bear.

In this 'play of hybridation' both of them identify with the object of his/her desire and by borrowing the others' attributes, the woman becomes a phallic bear and the teddy bear becomes feminine.

It is definitely about the loss, fall and quest of an object forever lost or missing. And it’s about the confusion and the impossible demand that ties us together and yet separates us forever.

This choreographic, but also plastic object uses a tremendously physical language to develop the objective relation to the other. The metaphor for the relationship between men and women becomes a tale of cruelty.

Barbara Mavro Thalassitis designed and made the scenery and costumes. This part of her work does not simply create the props and setting but are the very elements used to build the choreography. It’s through the interaction of animated and inanimated objects that the status of body and object are constantly questioned.

Erwin Wauters composed 40% of the music for Pavane (all the electronica, plus repatches of existing songs) which supports the basement feeling this work breathes from the startingpoint. It combines atmospheric soundscapes with deep and heavy bases travelling (ochtaphonic) through the theatre.

This piece is inspired by the fundamental principles of psychoanalysis and by what Jacques Lacan developed in his writings about the concept of object - notably where he enumerates their different types: the oral, the anal, the view, the vocal and finally the nothing. These objects (cause of desire) are the evident truth of how one looks for what one is missing in the other or in oneself since they cannot be designated to real objects.

interpretation and creation Barbara Mavro Thalassitis and Erwin Wauters choreography, objects, costumes and set design Barbara Mavro Thalassitis composition of the electronic music Erwin Wauters light design Laurence Halloy 'pavane pour une infante défunte' from Maurice Ravel, played life by Stephan Ginsburg


Playlist:

• 15th of February 2011 (20.00hrs): Theatre d'Arras, France (link)
• 29th and 31st of August 2010: Festival International des Brigitinnes, Brussels (link)
• 2nd and 3rd of July 2010: Oostende, beach for the DANSAND! festival (link) ! Picnic only (10 min)!
• 9th and 10th of June 2010: Espace Senghor, Brussels for the Balsa Marni festival (link)
• 18th and 19th of March 2010: Braçonne (Charentes, Angoulême - France): Mars en Braçonne
• 10th and 11th of February 2010: Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (Paris, France) program of the festival-link Festival 'On y danse'
• 25th and 27th of November 2009: La Biennale de Charleroi/Danses (link)
• 8th till 28th of July 2009: 19 performances in Avignon (festival OFF Avignon), La Manufacture: 2 rue des écoles, 84000 Avignon, France. Daily performance (except July 20th) at 17.15hrs (reservations: +33 (0)4 90 85 12 71) - info@lamanufacture.org
  
  
  

  
  
  
• 4th,5th, 6th of March 2009: premiering in theatre de l'Ancre, Charleroi, for the 2008/2009 season of Charleroi/Danses

More performances are possible to follow, please check this site regularly

Diffusion contact: Fabienne Aucant (CHARLEROI/DANSES)

We will keep you up to date of the upcoming shows, if you simply by send us a mail to wekatarakt@scarlet.be or add yourself as a friend on Facebook with Erwin Wauters

Videoreport and interview appearing on Together Magazine: